Editorial Windows 10 1903 Has a Nasty Audio Stutter Bug Microsoft Hasn't Managed to Fix

[trparky]

I'm not surprised that there aren't too many people complaining because sound cards are obsolete for 90% of their use cases.

I'd have to agree with you on that. Onboard audio works for close to 95% users unless of course, you're one of those people who have those supposed "golden ears" that can tell the difference. Personally, I can't tell the difference.

 

[Easo]

Sorry, but when a news post is written like this, I automatically qualify it as a whining. It's just... bad.

 

[HugsNotDrugs]

[Hardware accelerated audio] never went away if you buy a dedicated sound card.

Is this correct? I thought the audio pipeline in Windows was software only after XP and the dedicated sound cards were really just for cleaner sound output.

 

[djisas]

It's just not very useful to have a sound card for the vast majority of PC users, due to wireless headphones, integrated audio (especially on laptops), USB DACs with better driver support, HDMI audio on the HTPC side. You need to have very specific requirements and equipment for a sound card to be worth anything today.

I know a lot of people don't want to bother with all the driver headaches and extra cost for a subjective improvement to audio. It seems like a lot of the energy behind gaming headphones are to do virtual surround, another situation where there is not going to be any benefit to having a really nice stereo out solution.

So I feel for people with audio issues. Last year I was dealing with some of the regressions around DD Live or DTS Interactive/Connect for 5.1 surround sound, another oft-ignored part of the PC audio equation. There is no excuse for Microsoft not to test their OS with these cards at some point in the process. But I'm not surprised these issues cropped up, I'm not surprised they didn't catch it for a while, and I'm not surprised that there aren't too many people complaining because sound cards are obsolete for 90% of their use cases.

It's not all about gaming, a lot of people dont go around buying 50€, 7.1 gaming headsets, there's a whole HI-FI world where people play a lot for marginal improvements in audio quality and own expensive HI-Fi cans. And not everyone wants to invest a small fortune on a good DAC, i bought a fiio E10K and sounds inferior to my sound card using my stereo headphones, i can connect a 7.1 speaker set as well.
There is a market for expensive sound cards, not many good offers on store...

 

[Houd.ini]

I just make sure to get a motherboard with a toslink out, skipping onboard DA altogether. With that said, the line out on my two last motherboards (realtek 889 and 1220) have sounded absolutely fine with my DT770 Pros.

Sorry, but when a news post is written like this, I automatically qualify it as a whining. It's just... bad.

Maybe that's why it's not a news post, it says "editorial" right below the headline or even before the headline in the forums.

 

[R-T-B]

Drawing inspiration from the other world-famous Washingtonian product,

This was actually made after boeing snubbed us for tax reasons and moved to Chicago.

Can't blame us.

Still require drivers...

USB Audio Class 2 drivers are technically drivers yes, but they are integrated in every OS around. It needs drivers like your HDD does.

 

[gamefoo21]

Stutter? What stutter?

10 Pro x64 1903...

Installed and updating on the following close at hand:

Xonar older one on PCI-e with headphone amp
Strix Raid Pro Dlx
T61 onboard
T420s onboard
HP 800 SFF
HP Elite 1012 G1
HP Elite 1013 G3
HP Zbook Studio x360 G5

No stutter here. A mixture of dedicated sound hardware and onboard codecs.

Should I hook up my XFi Platinum, I can stuff it into my 7700K box.

Often audio stutters are the result of

1. Shitty hardware that has excessive subsystem latency. Notebookcheck tests it, and it's wild how much latency some systems have.
2. Software conflicts, usb stuff tends to conflict like mad with that crapware Corsair has. Drivers... Looking at you Creative...
3. Unstable hardware.

And yes...

4. OS problems.

 

[Axaion]

Also the hilarious DPC is ... reee..

 

[lexluthermiester]

because if you've used any of the recent Realtek audio products like the ALC1220 you'd know that it's really not that bad at all.

I have and fully disagree. I would rather use an old SouldBlaster Audigy or Turtle Beach card than use Realtek's current offerings, if there is no other choice. That said, I will admit to being an audio snob. Even slight imperfections in audio reproduction drive me bonkers. Credit where it's due, Realtek and others have made great strides in improvement. They're just not at the level that dedicated audio hardware is.

Stutter? What stutter?

Not everyone is experiencing it.

 

[R-T-B]

Also the hilarious DPC is ... reee..

What?

 

[Axaion]

What?

Its messed up

 

[lexluthermiester]

Is this correct? I thought the audio pipeline in Windows was software only after XP and the dedicated sound cards were really just for cleaner sound output.

It is. While the process of rendering audio is complicated, all audio devices with a dedicated DSP are hardware accelerated. This means that Windows and the system CPU are not involved in sound reproduction after a certain point in the processing stage.

 

[btarunr]

Is this correct? I thought the audio pipeline in Windows was software only after XP and the dedicated sound cards were really just for cleaner sound output.

Even after XP, you could do hardware audio over OpenAL and ASIO. Some post-Vista games actually leveraged OpenAL for hardware features like EAX 5. Winamp 5 had an AL output plugin that dumped much of the audio stack onto the X-Fi processor. Creative came up with a DirectSound to OpenAL translation layer called ALchemy.

 

[trparky]

Even slight imperfections in audio reproduction drive me bonkers.

You need to bring your expectations down a bit there.

 

[lexluthermiester]

You need to bring your expectations down a bit there.

No thank you. My expectations are precisely where they need to be. I expect excellence and am unwilling to accept less than such.

 

[Makaveli]

I'm also on 1903.

Older build x58 i7-970

x fi fatl1ty pro pcie and there is no stutter for me and Latency Mon is all green.

 

[Athlonite]

I still own an X-Fi fatl1ty pro pci, besides the ocasional driver nightmare it's working like a dream and it will be hard to get a proper PCIE replacement...

I have the PCIe version and after the latest driver update from Creative it's also a no problem audio card under 1903

 

[lexluthermiester]

Sorry, but when a news post is written like this, I automatically qualify it as a whining. It's just... bad.

Considering that it was stated as an editorial, that complaint seems a bit ironic.

 

[trparky]

No thank you. My expectations are precisely where they need to be. I expect excellence and am unwilling to accept less than such.

When most Realtek stuff gets within 95% to 98% of that excellence, it's usually good enough for me.

 

[lexluthermiester]

When most Realtek stuff gets within 95% to 98% of that excellence, it's usually good enough for me.

And that's cool, no worries. Not trying to imply that you, or anyone else, are lesser computer users for being ok with that 95% to 98%(which I could debate but won't).

However, in relation to the topic of this editorial, everyone needs to expect Microsoft to be on top of problems like this, expecting & demanding excellence and attention to detail. Microsoft is getting sloppy and needs to be reminded that they have a high bar to uphold.

 

[trparky]

Not trying to imply that you, or anyone else, are lesser computer users for being ok with that 95% to 98%

What? ...

everyone needs to expect Microsoft to be on top problems like this

That I can agree with you on.

 

[Athlonite]

I'd have to agree with you on that. Onboard audio works for close to 95% users unless of course, you're one of those people who have those supposed "golden ears" that can tell the difference. Personally, I can't tell the difference.

my ears are shit but I can still tell the difference between my PCIe X-Fi Fatality pro vs the onboard Realtek ALC 889

 

[trparky]

onboard Realtek ALC 889

Well yeah, but that's a pretty old audio chipset. Realtek has come a long way since then. The newer ALC1220-based onboard audio is miles ahead of what they used to be.

 

[lexluthermiester]

What? ...

It's been suggested that I come off a bit condescending sometimes. Wanted to be clear that's not what I was implying..

 

[trparky]

Yeah but the idea that you think I'm settling for that 95% to 98% range within so-called perfection is a bit offputting here. Now if I still had an ancient Realtek audio chip like @Athlonite has with his old ALC889 I'd have to agree with you, those old Realtek chips were just godawful. But that's not the case anymore, Realtek has brought some really good audio to the masses with recent audio chipsets that are within a very small margin of the so-called premium solutions.